Weekly Business Insights from Top Ten Business Magazines | Week 291 | Strategy & Business Model | 2

Extractive summaries of and key takeaways from the articles curated from TOP TEN BUSINESS MAGAZINES to promote informed business decision-making | Week 291 | April 7-13, 2023

Modern marketing: Six capabilities for multidisciplinary teams

By Anna Checa | McKinsey & Company | April 5, 2023

Listen to the Extractive Summary of the Article

Companies are falling short because their marketers are not trained to use the tools available to them, or to collaborate in truly impactful ways.  While the holistic re-thinking of employee skills is not necessarily at the top of a Chief Marketing Officers’ agenda, it is often a missing step for building and activating modern marketing capabilities.

At its heart, the modern marketing opportunity is a skills and talent challenge. Although most individuals in a marketing organization will continue to have expertise in one specific domain, people can no longer be good at just one thing. The new marketing superpower is multidisciplinary competency across six core capabilities: customer centricity, full-funnel marketing, agile operating model, multichannel excellence, measurement, and customer data and marketing technology.  Marketing will not be transformed by strength in one particular capability alone, even if it is built across the organization. All six capabilities are essential.

By using these capabilities, marketers will be able to develop a “T-shaped” skill set, with deep, domain-level expertise and an education across the broad spectrum of skills. The goal isn’t to turn data scientists into brand marketers or vice versa. Instead, the aim is to form bridges of understanding and to enable better communication, more creativity, quicker problem solving, and synergistic impact.

Companies that succeed in developing and sustaining modern marketing capabilities prioritize the development of new skills and strive to give marketers a clear sense of what is possible. Although it is tempting to do quick capability building by hiring a leader or acquiring a smaller firm, these spikes are almost always insufficient and often unsustainable. The most effective approaches leverage a triad of hiring, acquisition, and upskilling—with the heaviest emphasis on upskilling and training. These successes follow several key principles.  Some of these are: making marketing capabilities development of  capabilities is a first-rate strategic priority; extend learning programs to include other key stakeholders and cross-functional partners, both internally and externally; curate a program that leverages best practices for adult learning; view capability building as an ongoing journey, not an event; and celebrate wins to drive cultural change.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Companies are falling short because their marketers are not trained to use the tools available to them, or to collaborate in truly impactful ways.  
2. At its heart, the modern marketing opportunity is a skills and talent challenge. Although most individuals in a marketing organization will continue to have expertise in one specific domain, people can no longer be good at just one thing. The new marketing superpower is multidisciplinary competency across six core capabilities: customer centricity, full-funnel marketing, agile operating model, multichannel excellence, measurement, and customer data and marketing technology.  
3. Although it is tempting to do quick capability building by hiring a leader or acquiring a smaller firm, these spikes are almost always insufficient and often unsustainable. The most effective approaches leverage a triad of hiring, acquisition, and upskilling—with the heaviest emphasis on upskilling and training. 

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Topics:  Strategy, Marketing, Capabilities, Skills